


Some Are Born Great

by JubilantBebop



Category: Flavia de Luce Series - Alan Bradley, Wonder Woman (2009)
Genre: Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen, Pheasant Sandwiches
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-19 11:40:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29998797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JubilantBebop/pseuds/JubilantBebop
Summary: Flavia is dealing with a new, unhappy world...and on top of it all, Aunt Felicity has invited a family friend to stay.  Takes place immediately after "Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd".
Kudos: 1





	Some Are Born Great

**Author's Note:**

> This work is completely unbeta'd, so be gentle, please! As always, I don't own any of the characters within.

"[S]ome are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em." (Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Act II, Scene V)

There have been many times - more times than I am willing to admit - in which I wonder if families were a cruel joke played by nature. Rather than allowing us to spawn in peace and quiet, to go about our separate ways, we are thrown headlong into a battle of survival against our own flesh and blood.

I am speaking, of course, of sisters. If there were ever two prime examples of nature’s willingness to test our skills and patience with family, they would be Ophelia and Daphne de Luce. Too often, they had made a sport of trussing me up and dragging me to the cellar to inflict numerous, unspeakable terrors upon me. I could have been Saint Flavia, patroness of poisons and poisoners, and they would have still had me strung up by my big toes in the dining room to use as a pinata.

To that end, I have learned the best moments in which to flee and save what little skin I can from their verbal barbs. Feely and Daffy would never have revealed their true natures in front of Aunt Felicity, that bastion of a woman, but Buckshaw’s many echoing rooms offer a multitude of stages for private torture. I could have screamed until I was hoarse, and none but the portraits of my frowning ancestors would have heard. 

Which is why, once pudding had been served by a subdued Mrs. Mullet, general housekeeper and cook, I had fled the supper table before either of my loathsome sisters could even look up. The coach house cum garage had been the perfect hiding spot, and five minutes later I was ensconced comfortably in the driver’s seat of my late mother’s old Rolls Royce Phantom II, wrapped in a travelling rug.

Ophelia and Daphne’s latest barbs rang in my ears as I stared at the instrument panel in front of me, hardly seeing the dials and buttons. In any other instance, I was the queen of shedding insults and wreaking revenge through chemistry, but Father’s death only a week previous had changed something in me. It had certainly changed something in my sisters, for they had resumed their taunting with new and surprising vigor.

“If you hadn’t botched everything up so, Father would never have caught cold.” Feely had informed me icily the day after his funeral, over a luncheon of cold funeral meats and dishes brought by the villagers. “But as a changeling, you never do think of these things.”

I had slammed my fork down (upsetting a platter of the Missus Puddock’s best scones) and fled to my chemical laboratory in the east wing. It is a mark of how angry and hurt I was that, try as I might, I could not summon the calm necessary for a good romp with my favorite poisons. Even reciting their names could not slow my thudding heart. Instead, shamefully, I hurled an empty test tube at the peeling wallpaper, and sat for a long time in the darkness surrounded by shards of glass.

It was hardly better in Harriet’s old car. The cracked leather beneath me gave off a musty odor, and mice had made a home in the glove compartment. I could hear them rustling and squeaking as they went about their domestic mice lives. Still, it was warmer than my laboratory, which had never been properly outfitted with a heating system, and I dreaded finding a way back into the house without being spotted by my sisters. By some miracle, the dial in the dashboard had continued its ticking, so that I realized that it was nearing eleven. There was a chance, however miniscule, that Feely and Daffy would be in bed, and I decided at that moment to take a risk.

In any case, I had an idea. I would spend the night in my mother’s room, quiet as a mouse, and no one would be the wiser. Harriet’s quarters had been sealed off since the day her disappearance had been reported and were strictly off limits, and barring a few notable incidents, had remained closed to the rest of the house. To my knowledge, only Father had ventured into them, and he was gone now.

I brushed away the sudden tears that sprang to my eyes. We de Luces do not, as a rule, cry.

Snow had begun to pile up around the edges of the garden by the time I left the coach house, and I was so preoccupied in navigating the small drifts that I nearly missed the startling sight above my head. There was a light on in Harriet’s boudoir! A kind of iciness that had nothing to do with the snow settled in my veins, and I stood rooted to the spot, ankle-deep in snow.

I was no stranger to anger, proven by the shards of glass currently piled in a waste basket in my laboratory, but this was a different sort of anger, the fury that came when a sacred place was violated. In retrospect, I should have fetched Dogger. He would have known what to do with an intruder, but something deep inside me whispered that this was something to be dealt with among family. I sped through the kitchen door, shedding melted snow in all directions, and up the curved staircase to the west wing where our parents’ quarters lay.

Father’s room was unlocked, as I knew it would be. Although since his death it had also been declared sacred, there had been no need to lock it. Even in life Father had been a private man, and setting foot in his private rooms would result in certain drawing and quartering. The windows and furniture were still draped in black crepe, but I had no eyes for the mourning frippery. There was a door leading directly from his room to Harriet’s, and I burst past the green baize barrier, brandishing my fists like a prize-fighter. 

“What are you doing?!” I yelled, slamming the door behind me. At twelve years of age, I have found that others rarely take me seriously, and instead send me for tea and biscuits with a pat on the head. An earlier encounter with an enraged rooster had taught me that the best way to deal with larger opponents was to make oneself as large as possible, and make as much noise as possible. While I had no feathers to fluff up, I could at least puff up my chest and stand on my toes, and slam about like billy-ho. I am sure that Harriet would forgive the breach of her peace.

There was someone sitting at the vanity where Harriet’s silver-backed brushes and combs lived, and for the shortest of moments I thought it was Feely. Of the three of us, she had actually known Harriet before the fatal trip to the Himalayas, and she had often claimed Harriet’s things for her own use. It would just be like the old cow to claim our mother’s quarters next, citing her rights as the first daughter of the house.

But no. The woman sitting there had coal-black hair rather than blonde, carefully styled to curl over her shoulders, and she turned to face me as I advanced into the room. She was perhaps Harriet’s age (had Harriet lived), with fine, chiseled features and the slightest hint of a tan that suggested a mediterranean background. Had she been made of marble, she would have been right at home in a museum of Roman art.

I am ashamed to admit that I gaped at her, all intimidation attempts forgotten in the wake of her presence.

“FLAVIA.”

A door slammed behind me, jolting me from my paralysis, and I turned to find Aunt Felicity standing there in a hideous maroon dressing gown. With the scowl on her face she looked like a bulldog ready to tear into my hide with her teeth, and I had no doubt that she would do so without regret. As I have said, family is often more dangerous than other predators.

“Flavia, have you no decency?” Then, without regard to whatever I might have said, Aunt Felicity turned to the stranger at the vanity. “My apologies, Diana. This is Flavia, Harriet’s youngest. I’m sure I’ve told you about her.” Aunt Felicity jabbed me sharply in the side with one of her bony fingers. “Flavia, this is one of your mother’s oldest and dearest friends, and she’s visiting to pay her respects. Say hello.” 

I mumbled something polite, but my mind was still stuck like flypaper on what Aunt Felicity had said. She had told this woman about me? Diana smiled at me, and I felt a flush creep slowly up my cheeks.

“Diana Prince.” She said, offering a slender hand for me to take. “Your aunt tells me that you also enjoy pheasant sandwiches.”


End file.
